The chief operating officer of the North Island Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency, Awerangi Tamihere, has welcomed the Government’s decision to set up the Social Investment Agency to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of the more than $70 billion it spends each year on social services.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis says the Government is unhappy with growing inequality, so it’s putting $50 million into repurposing the Society Wellbeing Agency to pursue the new course.
Tamihere says the social return on investment model will force government agencies and service organisations to report on how spending creates change for whānau on the ground.
“It’s an important question to ask because the majority of funding goes to other organisations, other entities who are non-Māori delivering to Māori. This is the next step in providing an accountability framework to move away from not just saying this is the number of Māori they work with but to say did their money really achieve the outcomes that matter for our whanau,” Tamihere said.
She says this will allow Māori organisations to show that for the same amount of money they can achieve outcomes that are far more significant.
